1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a machine for peeling vegetables and fruits such as, by way of non-restrictive examples, potatoes, radishes, beets, turnips, apples, pears and the like.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
In order to meet the rapid rhythm of live, different types of kitchen appliances have been invented to save time and energy, and they have gained wide acceptance.
Amongst these kitchen appliances, machines for peeling vegetables and/or fruits have been developed. Examples of such machines are disclosed, by way of examples, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 430,139, 633,932, 2,415,249 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,881,406. These known machines are efficient. However, they have some difficulties in peeling vegetables or fruits with irregular surfaces. Indeed, their cutting blade do not always closely follow irregular contours and/or they go to deep in the vegetables or fruits thereby resulting in unpeeled areas and/or waste of valuable parts of the vegetables or fruits.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,137,839 discloses an improved machine for peeling vegetables and fruits, which includes a cutting head which closely follows the contour of the vegetable or the fruit to be peeled. The machine is equipped with a motor and can only work when connected to a source of electric power. The cutting head of this machine is not interchangeable and it is not adapted to every type of vegetable or fruit to be peeled.
Therefore, there is presently a need for an economic, highly efficient machine for peeling vegetables and fruits, which would be operable by hand and would have a blade mounted on a cutting/peeling device easy to interchange whenever needed, to adapt to all types and/or sizes of vegetables and fruits.